Daniel Dennett

"You don’t get to advertise all the good that your religion does without first scrupulously subtracting all the harm it does and considering seriously the question of whether some other religion, or no religion at all, does better."

"The one thing that I think is really dangerous in many religions is that it gives people a gold-plated excuse to stop thinking."

Dave Rubin

Programledare, komiker

Foto: David Janet

"The power of ideas is universal. When we discuss free speech, free thought and free expression it is vital that we mean it equally for everyone, not just in an identity politics based pecking order."

Douglas Adams

Författare, satiriker

Foto: Chris Ogle

"Now, the invention of the scientific method and science is, I’m sure we’ll all agree, the most powerful intellectual idea, the most powerful framework for thinking and investigating and understanding and challenging the world around us that there is, and that it rests on the premise that any idea is there to be attacked and if it withstands the attack then it lives to fight another day and if it doesn’t withstand the attack then down it goes."

"I remember a gentleman coming and telling us how very difficult it had proved to get the Bibles into Tibet, you know. They’d had seven occasions. The first time, there’d been landslides. The second time, there’d been rains and the pages had got stuck together. The third time, the mules had fallen of the mountainside. The fourth time, there were thunderbolts and so on. The seventh time, he said, ‘God helped us! And we got the Bibles into Tibet.’ The obvious conclusion is that God was trying like hell to stop them."

"Coming out as an atheist can cost an academic his or her job in some parts of America, and many choose to keep quiet about their atheism."

"Faith can be very very dangerous, and deliberately to implant it into the vulnerable mind of an innocent child is a grievous wrong."

"I’m sure Obama is an atheist; I’m sure Kennedy was an atheist, but I doubt if Pope Frank is."

Rowan Atkinson

Not the Nine O’Clock News, Mr. Bean

Foto: Gerhard Heeke

"What is wrong with inciting intense dislike of a religion if the activities or teachings of that religion are so outrageous, irrational or abusive of human rights that they deserve to be intensely disliked?"

"To criticize a person for their race is manifestly irrational and ridiculous, but to criticize their religion, that is a right. That is a freedom. The freedom to criticize ideas, any ideas – even if they are sincerely held beliefs – is one of the fundamental freedoms of society. A law which attempts to say you can criticize and ridicule ideas as long as they are not religious ideas is a very peculiar law indeed."

Salman Rushdie

Författare

"The Moment you declare a set of ideas to be immune from criticism, satire, derision, or contempt, freedom of thought becomes impossible."

Sam Harris

"It is taboo in our society to criticize a person’s religious faith. These taboos are offensive, deeply unreasonable, but worse than that, they are getting people killed."

"I challenge you o think of a question upon which we had a scientific answer, however inadequate, but for which now the best answer is a religious one."

Sean M. Carroll

Kosmolog, fysikprofessor

Foto: Sean M. Carroll (privat)

"One increasingly hears rumors of a reconciliation between science and religion. In major news magazines as well as at academic conferences, the claim is made that that belief in the success of science in describing the workings of the world is no longer thought to be in conflict with faith in God. I would like to argue against this trend, in favor of a more old-fashioned point of view that is still more characteristic of most scientists, who tend to disbelieve in any religious component to the workings of the universe."

"We’re not allowed to call the Higgs Boson the ‘God Particle’ anymore because now there’s evidence that it exists."

Stephen Fry

Comedian, actor, writer and activist

Foto: Marco Raaphorst

"It’s now very common to hear people say ”I’m rather offended by that” as if that gives them certain rights; it’s actually nothing more… It’s simply a whine. It’s no more than a whine. ”I find that offensive”, it has no meaning, it has no purpose, it has no reason to be respected as a phrase. ”I am offended by that”, well so fucking what?"

Stephen Hawking

Teoretisk fysiker, kosmolog (Cambridge)

Foto: Lwp Kommunikáció

"hat I meant by ”we would know the mind of God” is, we would know everything that God would know, if there were a God. Which there isn’t. I’m an atheist."

"There is a fundamental difference between religion, which is based on authority, and science, which is based on observation and reason. Science will win because it works."